By Jeff Hudson
Enterprise staff writer
The Davis Enterprise

The local campaign in Davis for Measure W - the Davis school district's $120-per-year instructional parcel tax - took on new meaning last week because of events in Sacramento.

On Tuesday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger indicated that, because of the state budget deficit, he may make midyear cuts of $2 billion to $4 billion in state funding for public education.

Coming on top of state funding cuts already made this year, that news sent shivers up the spines of school superintendents and other educators up and down California.


Bruce Colby, the Davis school district's associate superintendent for business services, said 'the impact of the governor's proposed cuts to the Davis school district could climb to millions of dollars.' He said the possible midyear cuts now resemble the governor's drastic (and politically unpopular) January budget proposal, 'which no one believed was plausible,' Colby said.

He added that the Davis school district is operating under a contract with the Davis Teachers Association, and therefore 'by state law, the vast majority of our employees are contracted for the full school year. Since our budget is 85 percent (employee) compensation, by and large, midyear cuts are unattainable.'

Superintendent James Hammond told The Enterprise last week that 'Measure W is a crucial step to maintaining our program stability in the face of state budget turmoil.'

And Davis school board trustee Gina Daleiden said, 'As we have seen in the headlines in the last few days, there is a heightening budget crisis in California, and we are going to need local funding to preserve our quality school system. People in Davis - young and old, parents, empty-nesters, business owners, seniors and UC students - all understand this.'

What it will cover

Measure W is a three-year parcel tax that would charge owners of single family homes $120 per year. Owners of multi-unit dwellings would be charged $50 per unit. There is an exemption for senior citizens who own their homes. An estimated $2.4 million would be raised each year.

The tax will specifically support elementary school science programs; class size reduction in ninth- and 10th-grade English classes and ninth-grade math classes; continued availability of foreign language programs; as well as elementary, junior high and high school music programs, junior high and high school physical education programs, and high school classes in drama, debate and journalism.

Measure W also supports the existing staffing of librarians - with half-time librarians at elementary schools and junior high schools, and a full-time librarian at Davis High School.

'The library is the heart of the school - it's access to information,' said Sharon Hallberg, who retired as Davis High School's librarian in 2006, but continues to educate new librarians as an adjunct professor at Sacramento State.

Hallberg worries that if Measure W doesn't pass, librarians and teachers will be pink-slipped, and Davis will lose ground compared to other districts. Even now, 'If you go down the Central Valley, around Fresno, you'll find that they have full-time librarians at their junior highs or middle schools, not half-time librarians,' Hallberg said.

More cuts looming

There's also growing recognition among Davis parents that Measure W has taken on added importance because of the looming budget cuts in Sacramento. Gavin Payne is a Davis parent who works at the California Department of Education as chief deputy state superintendent of public instruction.

The department doesn't take a stance on local issues like Measure W. However, Payne said that as a local parent, 'it's obvious with the state's ongoing fiscal crisis that it's more important than ever that local districts do what they can for themselves.'


'The state budget that was passed just a few weeks ago by the Legislature was - by its own admission - not perfect, and speculative,' Payne said. 'They are now discovering that there are gaps in the funding, and schools are looking at midyear cuts ... which would be absolutely catastrophic. And so it's essential that we take the steps to protect ourselves (in Davis) from what is going to be ongoing budget security from the state level.'

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, who is Payne's boss, contributed $2,000 to the Measure W campaign last week.

Michael Hulsizer, another Davis parent with a background in public education finance, said 'the reality of what the governor said this week amplifies the importance of Measure W to protect our programs. It just makes something like Measure W that much more important.'

No teacher layoffs?

James Beckwith is a Davis resident and parent who is CEO of Five Star Bank in Sacramento. He's also a volunteer with the campaign for Measure W.

'First and foremost, the money's needed to keep our current level of teachers employed,' Beckwith said. 'We don't want to have any kind of massive teacher layoff in Davis. Measure W gets us there for the next three years. And there's accountability built into it also.'

Bob Blattner, a Davis resident who runs an education-related consulting firm in Sacramento, addressed an open letter this week 'to the Davis school community.' Blattner explained why a district like Davis - which has experienced a small decline in enrollment, triggering a related decline in enrollment-related revenue from the state, magnified by the impact of the state budget crisis - is particularly hard-pressed by the present budget climate.

'First of all, a significant share - perhaps 30 percent or more - of district expenses are committed to fixed overhead costs that cannot be trimmed back proportionally when enrollment drops,' Blattner wrote.

'Nor is it possible for the Davis district to reduce teaching staff proportionally in response to declining enrollment,' he continued. 'Let's look at the 180 students that Davis schools lost between 2003 and 2007. That equates to about $1.5 million in lost revenue each year. Theoretically, the district could reduce its teaching staff by seven or eight teachers and maintain class sizes. ... In reality, however, those students don't come in tidy packages of 20 or 30 children conveniently in one grade at one site ... making it virtually impossible to respond to the loss of student enrollment through staff reductions.

'So you can see that the difficult budget reductions facing the district are indeed the result of a perfect storm of sorts,' Blattner wrote. 'In such times, the fiscal 'life raft' provided by Measure W is, to my mind, an entirely appropriate community response.'